President Donald Trump, left, gives his support to Dan Bishop, right, a Republican running for the special North Carolina 9th District U.S. Congressional race as he speaks at a rally in Fayetteville, N.C., Monday, Sept. 9, 2019.

Democratic House candidate Dan McCready talks to volunteers at his campaign office in Waxhaw, N.C., outside Charlotte, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2019. McCready faces Republican Dan Bishop in a special election for a vacant house seat Tuesday. National Democratic and Republican leaders are breathlessly watching Tuesday’s special election for an empty House seat from North Carolina for early clues about next year’s presidential and congressional races. But for the two candidates, the race is less glamour than grind.

A voters enters Precinct #25 at the West Charlotte Recreation Center, Tuesday, September 10, 2019 as they cast their ballots in the party primaries and in the 9th District race between Dan Bishop and Dan McCready. Voters across Charlotte and the region went to the polls to vote in local Democrat and Republican primaries, while others, in the now infamous 9th District, voted to send either Dan McCready or Dan Bishop to represent them in Congress.

Voter Sandy Blackwell, speaks to a reporter after voting in Mint Hill, N.C. on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019. Blackwell, an electrical engineer, registered Republican, voted for Dan Bishop. Bishop is running against Democrat Dan McCready, a former Marine who earned a Harvard master's degree in business and narrowly trailed in an election for the seat last year that was later invalidated after evidence surfaced of election fraud.

Tanya Archie-Younge, 56 and her husband, Jesse Younge, 62, cast their ballots at Precinct #25 at the West Charlotte Recreation Center Tuesday, September 10, 2019. Voters across Charlotte and the region went to the polls to vote in local Democrat and Republican primaries, while others, in the now infamous 9th District, voted to send either Dan McCready or Dan Bishop to represent them in Congress.

Precinct #74, at Alexander Graham Middle School, experienced a flurry of voters Tuesday, September 10, 2019 as they cast their ballots in the party primaries and in the 9th District race between Dan Bishop and Dan McCready. Voters across Charlotte and the region went to the polls to vote in local Democrat and Republican primaries, while others, in the now infamous 9th District, voted to send either Dan McCready or Dan Bishop to represent them in Congress on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019.

Tiger Outterson hangs on to five-month-old Cruise Outterson while Jessica Outterson prepares to vote with the help of William MacDonald Precinct #74 equipment supervisor at Alexander Graham Middle School in south Charlotte, N.C., where voters could cast their ballots in the party primaries and also could vote on the 9th District race between Dan Bishop and Dan McCready.

In this Aug. 15, 2019 photo, President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2019, in Manchester, N.H. Trump’s rally in North Carolina Monday will serve as a measure of his clout in trying to elect a Republican to the House. In addition, his appearance Monday will be his first campaign rally since a tough end of summer that saw slipping poll numbers, warning signs of an economic slowdown, and a running battle over weather maps. Trump is backing the GOP candidate in a North Carolina special election Tuesday that is considered a toss-up.

Campaign signs for Republican House candidate Dan Bishop and Democratic House candidate Dan McCready, are shown in in Waxhaw, NC, outside Charlotte, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2019. McCready faces Bishop in a special election for a vacant house seat Tuesday. National Democratic and Republican leaders are breathlessly watching Tuesday’s special election for an empty House seat from North Carolina for early clues about next year’s presidential and congressional races. But for the two candidates, the race is less glamour than grind.

Republican Dan Bishop speaks during an event at the Lee Park Church in Monroe, N.C., Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019, two days before a special election for a vacant House seat putting the Republican against Democrat Dan McCready. National Democratic and Republican leaders are breathlessly watching Tuesday’s special election for an empty House seat from North Carolina for early clues about next year’s presidential and congressional races. But for the two candidates, the race is less glamour than grind.

Supporters for Dan McCready, Lolo Pendergrast, from left, Marc and Mattye Silverman react after McCready lost a special election for United States Congress in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District to Republican, Dan Bishop, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019, in Charlotte, N.C.

Democrat Dan McCready reacts after losing a special election for United States Congress in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District to Republican, Dan Bishop, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019, in Charlotte, N.C.

With his wife, Laura by his side, Democrat Dan McCready greets supporters after losing a special election for United States Congress in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District to Republican, Dan Bishop, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019, in Charlotte, N.C.

With his wife, Laura by his side, Democrat Dan McCready greets supporters after losing a special election for United States Congress in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District to Republican, Dan Bishop, Tuesday, Sept.1 0, 2019, in Charlotte, N.C.

Conservative Republican Dan Bishop won a special election Tuesday for an open House seat in North Carolina, averting a demoralizing Democratic capture of a district the GOP has held for nearly six decades.

GOP holds N Carolina House seat but shows frailty in suburbs

President Donald Trump, left, gives his support to Dan Bishop, right, a Republican running for the special North Carolina 9th District U.S. Congressional race as he speaks at a rally in Fayetteville, N.C., Monday, Sept. 9, 2019.

Chris Seward

Democratic House candidate Dan McCready talks to volunteers at his campaign office in Waxhaw, N.C., outside Charlotte, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2019. McCready faces Republican Dan Bishop in a special election for a vacant house seat Tuesday. National Democratic and Republican leaders are breathlessly watching Tuesday’s special election for an empty House seat from North Carolina for early clues about next year’s presidential and congressional races. But for the two candidates, the race is less glamour than grind.

Alan Fram

A voters enters Precinct #25 at the West Charlotte Recreation Center, Tuesday, September 10, 2019 as they cast their ballots in the party primaries and in the 9th District race between Dan Bishop and Dan McCready. Voters across Charlotte and the region went to the polls to vote in local Democrat and Republican primaries, while others, in the now infamous 9th District, voted to send either Dan McCready or Dan Bishop to represent them in Congress.

John D. Simmons

Voter Sandy Blackwell, speaks to a reporter after voting in Mint Hill, N.C. on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019. Blackwell, an electrical engineer, registered Republican, voted for Dan Bishop. Bishop is running against Democrat Dan McCready, a former Marine who earned a Harvard master's degree in business and narrowly trailed in an election for the seat last year that was later invalidated after evidence surfaced of election fraud.

Sarah Blake Morgan

Tanya Archie-Younge, 56 and her husband, Jesse Younge, 62, cast their ballots at Precinct #25 at the West Charlotte Recreation Center Tuesday, September 10, 2019. Voters across Charlotte and the region went to the polls to vote in local Democrat and Republican primaries, while others, in the now infamous 9th District, voted to send either Dan McCready or Dan Bishop to represent them in Congress.

John D. Simmons

Precinct #74, at Alexander Graham Middle School, experienced a flurry of voters Tuesday, September 10, 2019 as they cast their ballots in the party primaries and in the 9th District race between Dan Bishop and Dan McCready. Voters across Charlotte and the region went to the polls to vote in local Democrat and Republican primaries, while others, in the now infamous 9th District, voted to send either Dan McCready or Dan Bishop to represent them in Congress on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019.

John D. Simmons

Tiger Outterson hangs on to five-month-old Cruise Outterson while Jessica Outterson prepares to vote with the help of William MacDonald Precinct #74 equipment supervisor at Alexander Graham Middle School in south Charlotte, N.C., where voters could cast their ballots in the party primaries and also could vote on the 9th District race between Dan Bishop and Dan McCready.

John D. Simmons

After a ballot fraud scandal overturned the results of North Carolina’s race for the ninth congressional district, voters went to the polls Tuesday to fill the nation’s only open seat.

In this Aug. 15, 2019 photo, President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2019, in Manchester, N.H. Trump’s rally in North Carolina Monday will serve as a measure of his clout in trying to elect a Republican to the House. In addition, his appearance Monday will be his first campaign rally since a tough end of summer that saw slipping poll numbers, warning signs of an economic slowdown, and a running battle over weather maps. Trump is backing the GOP candidate in a North Carolina special election Tuesday that is considered a toss-up.

Patrick Semansky

Campaign signs for Republican House candidate Dan Bishop and Democratic House candidate Dan McCready, are shown in in Waxhaw, NC, outside Charlotte, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2019. McCready faces Bishop in a special election for a vacant house seat Tuesday. National Democratic and Republican leaders are breathlessly watching Tuesday’s special election for an empty House seat from North Carolina for early clues about next year’s presidential and congressional races. But for the two candidates, the race is less glamour than grind.

Republican Dan Bishop speaks during an event at the Lee Park Church in Monroe, N.C., Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019, two days before a special election for a vacant House seat putting the Republican against Democrat Dan McCready. National Democratic and Republican leaders are breathlessly watching Tuesday’s special election for an empty House seat from North Carolina for early clues about next year’s presidential and congressional races. But for the two candidates, the race is less glamour than grind.

Alan Fram

North Carolina 9th district Republican congressional candidate Dan Bishop waits to speak by phone with President Trump at his victory party in Monroe, N.C., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019.

Supporters for Dan McCready, Lolo Pendergrast, from left, Marc and Mattye Silverman react after McCready lost a special election for United States Congress in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District to Republican, Dan Bishop, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019, in Charlotte, N.C.

Kathy Kmonicek

Democrat Dan McCready reacts after losing a special election for United States Congress in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District to Republican, Dan Bishop, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019, in Charlotte, N.C.

Kathy Kmonicek

With his wife, Laura by his side, Democrat Dan McCready greets supporters after losing a special election for United States Congress in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District to Republican, Dan Bishop, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019, in Charlotte, N.C.

Kathy Kmonicek

With his wife, Laura by his side, Democrat Dan McCready greets supporters after losing a special election for United States Congress in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District to Republican, Dan Bishop, Tuesday, Sept.1 0, 2019, in Charlotte, N.C.

Kathy Kmonicek

Conservative Republican Dan Bishop won a special election Tuesday for an open House seat in North Carolina, averting a demoralizing Democratic capture of a district the GOP has held for nearly six decades.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Conservative Republican Dan Bishop won a special election for an open House seat in North Carolina, averting a demoralizing Democratic capture of a district the GOP has held for nearly six decades. But his narrow victory didn't erase questions about whether President Donald Trump and his party's congressional candidates face troubling headwinds approaching 2020.

Bishop, a state senator best known for a North Carolina law dictating which public bathrooms transgender people can use, defeated centrist Democrat Dan McCready on Tuesday. Bishop tied himself tightly to Trump, who staged an election eve rally for him in the district, and Tuesday's voting seemed no less than a referendum on the Republican president, who quickly took credit for the triumph.

"Dan Bishop was down 17 points 3 weeks ago. He then asked me for help, we changed his strategy together, and he ran a great race. Big Rally last night," Trump tweeted. No polling has emerged publicly that showed Bishop with a deficit of that magnitude. Operatives from both parties and analysts had long said the race was too close to call.

The results in the district underscored the rural-urban split between the parties, with Bishop, 55, running up substantial numbers in outlying areas and McCready eroding GOP advantages in suburban areas. McCready's moderate profile resembled that of many Democrats who won in Republican-leaning districts in the 2018 midterms and, even with the loss on Tuesday, showed the durability of that approach.

Bishop's margin — a little more than 2 percentage points — was far less than the 11 percentage points by which Trump captured the district in 2016. And it was only slightly greater than when then-GOP candidate Mark Harris seemed to win the seat over McCready, 36, last year — before those results were annulled after evidence of vote tampering surfaced and a new election was ordered.

Republicans have held the seat since 1963, and its loss would have been a worrisome preface to the party's presidential and congressional campaigns next year.

"I think it means Trump is going to get a second term, and Republicans will retake the majority," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in an interview with The Associated Press. Many analysts think a GOP takeover will be difficult.

Special elections generally attract such low turnout that their results aren't predictive of future general elections. Even so, the narrow margin in the GOP-tilted district suggested that Democrats' 2018 string of victories in suburban districts in red states including Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas could persist next year.

Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, who runs House Democrats' political committee, said the close race showed her party is "pushing further into Republican strongholds" and was in a "commanding position" to do well next year.

Michael Bitzer, a politics professor at Catawba College in North Carolina, said the narrow margin suggests that the country's other closely divided swing districts "could be still up for grabs."

There is almost no pathway to Republicans regaining House control next year unless they avoid losing more suburban districts and win back some they lost last year.

The district stretches from Charlotte, one of the nation's financial nerve centers, through its flourishing eastern suburbs and into less prosperous rural counties along the South Carolina line. More than half its voters were expected to come from the suburbs.

Since Trump became president, voters in such communities — particularly women and college-educated voters — have abandoned Trump in droves over his conservative social policies and vitriolic rhetoric on immigration and race.

Suburban defections would also jeopardize the reelection prospects of Trump, who's already facing slipping poll numbers. Limiting the erosion of those voters will be crucial for him to retain swing states like North Carolina, which he won by less than 4 percentage points in 2016.

But Tuesday's vote showed that Bishop benefited from the district's conservative leanings.

"Bishop, his policies follow my convictions — after hearing Bishop, knowing that he's for the Second Amendment and he's against illegal immigration," said Susie Sisk, 73, a retiree from Mint Hill. The registered Democrat said she voted for Bishop.

Along with a GOP victory in a second vacant House district in North Carolina, Republicans pared the Democratic majority in the House to 235-199, plus one independent. That means to win control of the chamber in 2020, Republicans will need to gain 19 seats, which a slew of GOP retirements and demographic changes around the country suggests will be difficult.

In the day's other special election, Republican Greg Murphy, a doctor and state legislator, defeated Democrat Allen Thomas — as expected — to keep a House district along North Carolina's Atlantic coast.

That seat has been vacant since February, when 13-term GOP Rep. Walter Jones died, and Trump won the district handily in 2016.

The bathroom law that Bishop sponsored was repealed after it prompted a national outcry and boycotts that the AP estimated cost North Carolina $3.7 billion.

Bishop bound himself tightly to Trump, backing his proposed border wall with Mexico and accusing Trump critics of being intent on "destroying him."

"The voters said no to radical, liberal polices pushed by today's Democratic Party," Bishop said in a victory speech.

McCready, a former Marine who started a firm that's financed solar energy projects to cast himself as a job creator and environmental champion. He also focused on containing health care costs and ran a spot featuring his trademark promise to prioritize "country over party."

In his concession speech, McCready referred to the ballot fraud investigation that led to Tuesday's special election.

"When the people in power sought to silence the voices of the voters, stole their ballots, forged signatures from them, filled in vote choices for them," McCready said, "we fought back and we won."

At a rally Trump staged for Bishop in July, Trump said four Democratic women of color should "go back" to their home countries, though all but one was born in the U.S. The crowd began chanting "Send her back!"

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